


It takes a village

by Doombunny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21728137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doombunny/pseuds/Doombunny
Summary: This was written for the 25 days of Christmas Challenge that is hosted by  @panicfob .  The Day 8 Challenge prompt was Gingerbread houseWarnings: Fluff and hints of a relationshipPairing:  OFC x Tony StarkSummary: A painful incident and distraction therapy help Belle realize that family can be more than the blood you are born too.  Family, Ohana, can be what you make it
Relationships: Tony Stark/OFC (Belle Porter)
Kudos: 5





	It takes a village

“Barnes, confirm all clear on the west?”  
“Confirmed”  
“Rogers, Widow, Status?”  
“Clear”

“OK ladies and gentlemen it looks like things are all wrapped up/. Return to the rendezvous point. Barton, are read for extract on 60 and Wilson complete the clear down protocol”

Belle waited for confirmation to come over the coms before starting to transfer the streamed data and run things through the banks of analysis tools that helped her with her work. It had been a long couple of days without the team being around. She and Tony had been enjoying their growing relationship and she felt so comfortable with him that it was hard to believe that he hadn’t always been a part of her life. They were still kind of feeling their way, working on boundaries and learning how to share with each other, but things had been going well. 

Things had been quiet for long enough that she had been shocked when an emergency alert had come in and the team had quickly been dispatched en mass. Keeping herself distracted was easy to do when she had her job to fall back on, but at night, when she had some downtime she found that she missed Tony and the others. Sleep hadn’t come easily and Belle had found that wrapping herself in one of Tony’s hoodies that had been left in the common area helped. It would be another couple of days if things went well before the team was home so now she needed some other way to busy herself,

Tony looked through some of the data that they had retrieved on mission, but he wasn’t really putting all his attention into the task, his mind was thousands of miles away, thinking of a a woman whose eyes showed everything she was feeling and whose smile made him feel like he was the greatest man to walk the earth. He would be home to her soon enough and the unease he felt at not being there to protect her would fade back into the background. 

“Mr Stark”. Tony blinked awake slowly “Mr Stark” Rubbing his hands over his face Tony tired to focus. “FRIDAY?” His voice was rough and croaky and he quickly lowered the volume when he realized that the others were asleep around him, well at least Rogers was, the man snored like a bull. Disengaging the harness from over his shoulder he slipped out of his seat and heading up to the cockpit where Barton or Wilson would still be up.

It was Clint who turned and nodded in his direction when the cockpit door opened. There was some vaguely familiar turn playing quietly and Bartons hands tapped gently with the rhythm.

“Ok FRIDAY what’s up”

“Apologies for disturbing you sir, but I thought you should know that there was an incident at the compound”

Tony froze for a second slumping down into the co-pilots chair “Define incident. Do you mean, Oh a window broke or oh aliens invaded and burned the place down?” His heart was pounding, Belle was at the compound - if something had happened to her then…..

“There was a phone call this evening from Col Fury asking for a status update”

“Ok and I am sure that Belle was capable of handling that “

“Indeed Sir, however at the end of the call the Colonel informed Agent Porter than he didn’t appreciate all of her belongings being sent to SHIELD. He was somewhat annoyed that Agent Porter had compromised security.”

Tony groaned, he had no idea what FRIDAY was talking about “FRIDAY I have….”

“Agent Porter was most distressed and arranged for her things to be delivered to the compound. Her distress increased further when after she made a second call. As for 10 minutes ago she has not slept for close to 24 hours”

Suddenly things started to slot into place in Tony’s mind “FRIDAY confirm who Agent Porter called”

“Agent Porter spoke with Dianne Porter for approximately 10 minutes”

“Ok I need you to monitor Agent Porter and let me know if anything else upsets her and get me on the line to Fury”. Tony waited his fingers drumming on his leg as he heard rising and waited for Fury to pick up. He was suitably annoyed by the time the other man was on the line that he didn’t give him a chance to speak “ Nicholas, you want to tell me why the hell you decided to upset my mission analyst and then leave her dealing with the fallout?” 

Clint raised his eyebrows, he could only hear one side of the conversation but it was enough to understand that everything wasn’t ok. Without being asked, he started to adjust the settings increasing the speed and checking the route to see if there was any way he could get them home faster.

Belle used the back of her hand to push a piece of hair that had fallen over her face. Her eyes burned from tiredness and the tears that hadn’t stopped falling for at least a couple of hours after her phone call with the Director. She hadn’t thought anything of the call, she often spoke to him or Maria Hill on the back of missions, not usually as quickly as this but maybe there was some other importance that she wasn’t aware of. What he hadn’t been expecting was the rollocking that came from an seemingly innocent question  
“Tell me Agent Porter, you are aware of the fact that SHIELD is an at least somewhat covert organization, are you not?”

“Of course Director” Belle was thrown, based on his tone he was obviously furious about something and she had no idea what.

“Really because if that was the case I can’t help but wonder why you would have all your belongings shipped to me because that DOES NOT SOUND LIKE YOU ARE RESPECTING THAT”

Belle had stumbled over apologies and confusion. A number of boxes had been shipped to SHIELD for the attention of the director with an accompanying letter explaining that they were unwanted at their current location. Fury had ranted at her for a solid 5 minutes before winding down when Belle promised that she would have the items shipped to the compound. He had finished the conversation with the request to have pertinent report details sent to both himself and Maria Hill.

There was only one place that the items could have come from but before Belle could tackle that she needed to calm herself, Fury had made it clear that further protocol breaches would come at the cost of her position and Belle figured he wasn’t the joking sort. Loosing her job wold break her heart, but losing her family and Tony would cost her so much more. She would find some way to serve the job, but Tony and the others were snarled so deep into her heart that loosing them may just kill her. The more she thought on it the more she panicked, the faster her breathing became and the more tears fell. She lost track of time as she paced the halls working through worst case scenarios her panic rising by the moment

FRIDAY had eventually pulled her out of her spieling state with a blast of cold air and a calm voice, which, despite its feminine tone reminded her of Tony. She felt emotionally exhausted but knew that she needed to deal with this. FRIDAY placed the call and she waited for her mother to pick up.

The conversation had been short and to the point. As far as Dianna Highland (formally Porter) was concerned she didn’t have a daughter. Any child she had ever look-up wasn’t a part of her life and any shit that was left behind she didn’t want to deal with. The solid tone let her know that her mother had closed any contact with her one time daughter and there would be no further discussion on the matter.  
Belle had paced and ranted and cried before deciding that she should prepare the reports and stay on Fury’s good side. FRIDAY had helped by setting up the coffee maker and making sure it stayed warm while Belle worked through the analysis and filled in the paperwork. 

Sitting still at her desk, and drinking a boat load of coffee left Belle twitchy. She knew that the others would have packed up and would be heading back. She didn’t want to bother them on the journey so she needed to find something to do. She had seriously been considering a work out when she had seen the gifts under her tree and had a sudden moment of inspiration.

Her hands were sticky, her body was sore and she wasn’t sure if she was seeing straight anymore as the tree she was attempting to balance next to the double sized gingerbread house seemed to be leaning quite alarmingly to the left. She used her finger to push it upright, at which point it leaned to the right. Belle let out a huff of annoyance and rubbed at her eyes, managing to smear a dollop of the sticky blue icing she had been using across her cheek. 

The damn tears that had dried up sometime around the second tray of ginger cookie shaped went into the oven. She hadn’t lost her new family yet and she was going to make them a tat festive treat as a surprise for when they got home. She had mixed, chilled, rolled and baked assembling what she needed. FRIDAY had organized for her items to be delivered so she was able to just sink into her project. Other than the tree which was currently causing her no end of problems, she was happy with what she had produced. She had managed to create her own little gingerbread village, each of the houses had been decorated with the insignia of the team members and on each individual’s house she used some of their favorite candy’s to add decoration. She had decided to create a small woodland around the outside, and wanted to add some powdered sugar for snow and maybe some sparking stuff but if the tree wouldn’t co-operate.  
“Agent Porter, may I make a suggestion”

“Sure, I’m all out of ideas” Belle clenched and opened her hands a few times relieving the ache

“I would recommend that you take a moment to rest and think through options. I believe you may need a stronger glue substance as the trees are heavier and larger than the other items”

Belle scowled at the tree, she didn’t think that she had made them larger, maybe the AI was right though. Taking a moment she sat on one of the stools looking across the counter at the model, perhaps the tree did look a little bigger. Her head rested on her arms and she blinked once, twice and then her eyes didn’t open again.  
Tony was furious when he managed to get FRIDAY to stream the conversation between Nick and his Snowflake. While the other man had no way to know that Belle was important to him, he had no right to threaten her job or anything else. 

Barton had managed to shave a couple of hours off of the journey time and as they landed FRIDAY let him know that Belle was currently asleep in the common room. He had informed the others they would debrief later and was off the jet as soon as the doors opened. Barton had waved the others back and he was fairly sure the other man had also explained a little of what what happening back at base.  
Striding through the compound he pushed his sleeves up - he was going to to have to think of someway to get back at that utter bitch that his girl had to call a mother. He desperately wanted to do something awful like wait until she went to work and then blow up her house, but he also didn’t want to upset Belle.

Seeing his girl sound asleep, had resting on her folded arms, sprinkles and icing smeared on her cheek his heart felt like ti both melted and broke at the same time. He could see she had been crying and he figured that he could maybe blow up her car as well as the house. His hand was soft when he ran it over her cheek, but still her brow furrowed and her eyes slowly opened.

“Tony”  
“Hey Snowflake, I heard that you had a bit of a day baby”  
“I screwed up Tony, the Director is furious and I can’t say I blame him. I probably over reacted and well, yeah.” She looked down and took in the state of herself. She was covered in sticky icing and sugar and god knows what else. Her face flushed “I had meant to tidy up”

Tony grinned “Well it looks like if you choose to leave us you probably shouldn’t look for a job in architecture, your walls and trees are listing a bit” he teased looking over the small village she had created 

Looking at the houses Belle could see what he meant. She had been sure that it looked better than this before she fell asleep

“You know what though, there is a lot of beauty in the imperfect my Snowflake” he pulled her up by her hand “the things that matter to everyone, those things are perfect. Look at how you thought about each of us” He lifted a piece of candy off the side and popping it in his mouth, humming in pleasure “The love that’s right here, that’s the most perfect thing of all”. He hooked his finger under Belle’s chin and turned her face so she was looking up at him.

“This is perfect, and for us, you are perfect Snowflake”. He pressed his lips against hers, tasing the sugar sweetness, letting go of her hands his own wound into her hair pulling her closer, as he deepened the kiss, his tongue brushing against her own 

Belle couldn’t keep the groan in as she melted against this wonderful man who always seemed to know what to say and when. Her arms wrapped around his neck her fingers carding int the shorter hairs at the back of his neck. As she pulled slightly she felt the rumble in his chest and then heard Tony’s groan of pleasure. He pulled this lips from hers resting his forehead against her own staring deeply into her eyes.

“You’re all sweet and sticky baby, and only some of it is in the good way. Let's get you cleaned up” He stepped back lowering his hand to grab hers again and pulling slightly. Belle went happily. Pressing into his side 

“You’ll come with me right?” She felt his kiss on the crown of her head 

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried baby. FRIDAY, let the others know we’re done for the day, I don’t want to see them until tomorrow, and make sure they don’t touch the bit of that village Belle made for me”. 

Standing in the elevator heading up to Tony’s floor Belle pushed up kissing her man again. No matter what she wasn’t going to let anyone take this man, these people, from her.


End file.
